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SPEECH 



HON. SAMUEL A. PUKVIANCE, 



OF PENNSYLVANIA, 



ON THE 



SLAVERY AND PRESIDENTIAL QUESTIONS. 




DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AUGUST 4, 1856. 



WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 
1856*. 



SLAVERY— THE PRESIDENCY, 



The House being in the Committee of the Whole on the 
state of the Union- 
Mr. PURVIANCE said: The merits of the 
great trial which is now going on before the grand 
unquest of the nation are now prominently forced 
upon the consideration of this House. It is, per- 
haps, right to have the principles of the great 
parties of the country properly presented and fully 
canvassed in a discussion, even in the chamber 
of American legislation, radiating, as itdoes,over 
the length and breadth of the land, and bringing 
back a pure, strong, and wholesome reflection of 
the entire popular will. The friends of Mr. Buch- 
anan in this House, calling themselves the Dem- 
ocratic party, have arraigned the American and 
Republican parties, and severely criticised the 
principles of both in speeches of great length, 
which have been sent to every post office in the 
Union, with direction, doubtless, to give them 
general distribution. 

The American and Republican parties were 
produced by, and are, the legitimate offspring of 
the old Democratic party. In other words, the 
course pursued by the latter in endeavoring to 
secure the two great political powers of the Gov- 
ernment, the papal and the slave, has very natu- 
rally created antagonisms amongst the people, 
resulting in the formation of strong political par- 
ties. It is a fact which cannot be controverted, 
that for twenty years the so-called Democratic 
party has bowed with obsequious devotion to 
secure the support of the Catholies of the country, 
and that, with a few honorable exceptions, they 
have been successful. 

In 1852, Mr. Pierce, the nominee for the Pres- 
idency, hailing from the only State whose con- 
stitution proscribes a Catholic from holding office, 
it was thought and believed, that body of people, 
if actuated by a proper spirit of resistance to re- 
ligious intolerance, would have cast their votes 
against the grandson of him who helped to frame 
the obnoxious constitution. For a time, and 
within a short period before the election, many 
of them showed a determination to avenge them- 
selves of what they then complained was a most 



grievous wrong. The election came, and with 
but a few honorable exceptions the Catholics 
throughout the United States licked the rod that 
smote them, by throwing almost their entire suf- 
frage to Pierce. 

This most singular vote produced a shock upon 
public sentiment which has not yet ceased its 
vibrations. It was boldly charged that the result 
had been obtained by an arrangement between 
Bishop Hughes and the friends of Mr. Pierce, by 
which the former was to secure a participation 
in the management and control of the incoming 
Administration. 

The distribution of official patronage riveted 
upon the public mind the conviction which pre- 
vious circumstances had strongly tended to in- 
spire. 

From this result the American people turned 
with indignant horror, refusing to recognize, so 
far as the ballot-box was concerned, a body of 
men as equals, who suffered themselves to be 
politically controlled by the head of the Church 
of which they were members. Separation of 
Church and State being the true American doc- 
trine, the complete identification of Catholicism 
with Democracy naturally inspired the public 
mind with suspicion and alarm. 

The Democratic party having wooed to their 
embrace the Catholic power of the country, they 
must be content with the chastisement they are 
now receiving as a punishment for this improper 
alliance of Church and State. Ours is a Govern- 
ment in which like voice of the people is the con- 
trolling element, and every man should speak 
and act for himself as becomes the character of a 
sovereign, and not suffer himself to be controlled 
in political affairs by any power on earth but his 
own convictions of duty. The enlightened state 
of public sentiment in America must, and I am 
happy to say is beginning gradually to dispel the 
delusion under which our Catholic population 
labor. Already there are to be found men reared 
in that faith who are asserting and maintaining 
their freedom from all restraint of pope, bishop, 
priests, or church hierarchy in political affairs. 



With some of these I am personally acquainted, 
and can vouch for their firm determination in 1852, 
persisted in to the end, to resist the power which 
unfortunately, in the judgment of the American 
public, controlled the most of them. When they 
step aside from this church dominancy , and think 
and act for themselves, assert and maintain the 
high prerogative of freemen, and shut their ears 
against the repeated and never-ending efforts of the 
Democratic leaders to inflame their prejudices for 
no other purpose than to make them " hewers 
of wood, and drawers of water;" then, and only 
then, will they cease to be slaves, and at once rise 
to the dignity of freemen, and become, in every 
sense of the word, " Americans." Freedom of 
conscience, as well as freedom of speech and of 
the press, are the constitutional guarantees which 
belong to all; and no one, either in Church or State, 
has any right to control the political action of the 
humblest citizen in the land. Americanism is 
arrayed against political Romanism only, and 
seeks to give every conscience its own control, 
instead of allowing it to be controlled by others. 
For twenty years and upwards, within my own 
personal knowledge, the Democratic party has 
been engaged in the habitual practice, a short 
time previous to an election, of fabricating ludi- 
crous stories of the wrongs which other parties 
are about to inflict upon Catholics, and never 
failing to secure the services, in every town and 
township, of some supposed leader, upon prom- 
ise of political reward, they reach the ears, and 
delude the minds of the masses, with no other 
purpose than to secure their vote, and afterwards 
to laugh at the means employed to obtain their 
object. The imposition of restraint by the head 
of the Church, or, in the absence of this, the in- 
flammatory appeals to the prejudices of the Cath- 
olic mind By the Democratic party, in the judg- 
ment of a large body of the American people, 
has kept, and until removed will doubtless keep, 
the Catholics, as a body, the allies of the Demo- 
cratic party, which mainly contributed to create, 
and which will doubtless equally contribute to 
continue in existence, the American party. 

REPEAL OF THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 

In 1852, Franklin Pierce was elected to the 
Presidency with a unanimity unprecedented — 
twenty-seven States out of thirty-one casting in 
his favor. The dispensation of Federal patron- 
age, as already observed, helped to bring into 
existence the American party, but in other re- 
spects his administration gave promise of undis- 
turbed quiet and repose. The Thirty-Third Con- 
gress assembled, a majority or* both Houses 
being Democratic, and giving to that party abso- 
lute and undisputed sway in the administration 
of the Government. The responsibility of meas- 
ures enacted of course devolved upon the party 
in power. Without either petition or memorial 
from North or South, East or West, a bill was 
presented repealing the Missouri compromise, a 
compromise made by our fathers in 1820, by 
which the Territory of Kansas and Nebraska was 
forever dedicated to freedom. The cause of this 
extraordinary act, in which northern Democrats 
played a conspicuous part as originators and lead- 



ers, was readily found to exist in the restive de- 
sire of those leaders to make themselves prom- 
inent with the slave power — a power which 
has heretofore ruled the Government, and which 
these political marplots believed would ever con- 
tinue to do so. Turning their backs upon the 
North, they joined hands with Stephens, Toombs, 
and others of the South; and in the hour of mid- 
night broke the seals of the solemn covenant 
made by our fathers, North and South, in 1820, 
for the maintenance of freedom in the Territories 
north of 36° 30'. The deed was done, but not 
without resistance from patriots North and South. 
The members of the once-powerful Democratic 
party of the North, disgusted with this exhibition 
of bad faith and broken honor, left by thousands 
the party with which they had ever acted, and 
helped to change entirely the character of the 
national House of Representatives. 

Why did the Democracy repeal the Missouri 
compromise ? They say it was done to establish 
popular sovereignty — the right of the people to 
act for themselves in the government and control 
of territorial affairs; and to establish, or refuse to 
establish, slavery, as they may determine. If this 
were even so, it would amount to a perpetration 
of a wrong, in robbing freedom of her right to 
soil obtained by solemn contract thirty-four years 
ago. Wrong for another reason: that it opens a 
large tract of fertile country to become the theater 
of bloodshed, of continued strife, in fighting about 
a question which our fathers, thirty- four years 
before, had settled upon a basis satisfactory to 
all. As an evidence that it was not done for the 
purpose of establishing popular sovereignty, the 
very authors of the bill and doctrine will not allow 
the free resident voters to control, and the boasted 
authors of popular sovereignty rob the very sov- 
ereigns they create of the power for which they 
say they fought so hard, in the passage of the 
Nebraska bill, to invest them. 

Although the law professes to leave it to the 
people to say whether slavery shall, or shall not, 
exist, the very authors of the bill assert and 
maintain that slavery does exist in the Territo- 
ries, independent of the bill; therefore the Ne- 
braska bill inaugurated no new right, and, on this 
account, can claim no merit. 

If Congress has no constitutional power to con- 
trol slavery in the Territories — as most, if not all, 
southern gentlemen contend; and if, as they say, 
popular sovereignty applies only to the action of 
the people in forming a constitution for admission 
as a State, then it is obvious the bill conferred 
no new power, and of course created no changes. 
The right of the people to form their own con- 
stitution, when about to apply for admission, is 
doctrine as old as the Government itself, and 
asked for no enactments to give it additional 
strength. 

ADMISSION OF KANSAS. 

Popular sovereignty is the pretext, but exten- 
sion of slavery the purpose, for which the repeal- 
of the time-honored Missouri compromise was 
effected. A large majority of the resident citizens 
of Kansas selected delegates to a convention to 
frame a constitution for admission into the Union. 



The convention sat at Topeka, framed its consti- 
tution, and presented it to Congress for admis- 
sion. All the friends of Mr. Buchanan, in the 
House and Senate, but three, voted against the 
recognition of this act of popular sovereignty of 
the people of this unfortunate Territory The 
admission of Kansas, therefore, as one of the 
States of the Union — it is folly to disguise the 
fact — is opposed for no other reason than that she 
presents herself clothed in the beautiful garb of 
freedom. She asks to come into the sisterhood 
of States robed in white, as an appropriate em- 
blem of the purity of her devotion to universal 
liberty. Along side of her sister California, she 
desires to take her stand, if not as a golden 
magnet, as the. star of the West — the future des- 
tined center of the Union — the pivot State between 
the two great oceans which wash the eastern and 
western limits of heaven's favorite nation. There 
is a fitting propriety in giving her a cordial wel- 
come, a warm and hearty embrace, as the young- 
est sister whose birth will end the painful throes 
of an almost dying mother. Her coming will be 
the signal for hearts to leap with joy at an event 
which will inaugurate a new era, by ending the 
horrors of civil war and bloodshed in the land. 
Shall she come a* such, or be ushered in under 
the pall of liberty's funeral dirge — her beauty 
covered by the dark vail of slavery, to remain 
forever hid from the gaze of an admiring world ? 

This is the question which claims the judgment 
•of the whole American people, which judgment 
we, as their Representatives, are required to give. 
Por one, I rejoice to declare that I am most un- 
reservedly, heart and soul, on freedom's side. 
Others, I know, have taken a different stand. The 
conflict must come here in this and the other 
Chamber, and at the ballot-box, and it behooves 
us all to be prepared. 

That the South have determined to make Kansas 
a slave State, and that, too, for the purpose of 
perpetuating the political power of the nation in 
their hands, I have no doubt; because I have from 
them the open and direct avowal of such a pur- 

Cose. That that purpose is to be accomplished 
y an attempt to restore the slave trade is also 
openly, publicly, and, I may add, recklessly 
avowed. The Charleston Standard, of recent 
date, holds the following language: 

'• We believe the Union will be temporarily prolonged by 
the introduction of slavery into Kansas ; but we believe it 
might be extended to an indefinitely distant period by the 
measure we propose [the restoration of the slave trade ] 
With the certainty of having I he balance of political power, 
we would have little motive to a dissolution ; while the sta- 
bility and repose to the North, from the predominance of 
slave power in the Government, would counterbalance 
any inclination they might have to leave us." 

The Richmond Whig, of recent date, says: 
" In a word, we stand ready to approve and encourage 
every effort which southern men, in their wisdom and judg- 
ment, may decide upon to promote emigration to Kansas 
from the southern States. If Kansas can be rescued from 
the grasp and dominion of the Free-Soilers and Aboli- 
tionists, and erected into a defense of slavery and southern 
institutions, why. in God's name, we appeal to the patriot- 
ism, and enterprise, and liberality of the South, to rally to 
the rescue and consummate the glorious work."' 

Again: in the call for a meeting at Charleston, 
'.he following language is used: 
" The meeting announced in behalf of the cause of the 



South in Kansas, takes place to night in the hall of the In- 
stitute. The occasion and the cause cannot fail to call forth 
our citizens in great zeal and numbers. Their importance 
can duly be appreciated when it is remembered that Kansas 
has swallowed up all other questions in the Union ; that for 
two long months it has kept the Government in a state of 
anarchy ; and that its solution is admitted on all hands to be 
the most hazardous problem that has yet come up before 
the Republic ; but to the southern people it has an interest 
higher than that of the Union. Tt is linked with the destiny 
of 1,500,000 of slave property, and with the entire wealth, 
civilization, and hopes of the southern people. In such a 
cause Charleston cannot be lukewarm. Her commerce, 
her trade, her existence, is but a portion of the life of the 
South ; and whatever strikes at that strikes at her. It will 
be seen by the advertisement, that the galleries of the hall 
will be reserved for the ladies, who never fail to respond to 
the calls of patriotism and honor." 

The object, therefore, of the South, in forcing 
slavery into Kansas, is boldly avowed to be the 
acquisition of political power; in other words, 
the political subjugation of sixteen millions of 
free whites in the North, to the control of three 
hundred and forty-seven thousand slaveholders 
of the South. Disguise it as you may, this is 
the question which has to be met by the people 
of the North with a sternness of purpose which 
knows no faltering. For one, whatever the con- 
sequences may be, I am prepared to fight this 
moral battle to the end. It is not my habit or 
my purpose to deal in personalities. I mean 
to be respectful — to infringe upon no parliament- 
ary decorum; but I mean to speak boldly, freely, 
and frankly, unawed by any power on earth, 
and answerable only for what 1 do and say here 
to my own convictions of duty and to my con- 
stituents. 

I desire to speak of the consequences of this 
reckless repeal of an act of plighted faith. 

It has reopened the slavery agitation anew, and 
fomented quarrels and bloodshed even at the 
Capitol of the nation. 

It has produced the burning of cities and mur- 
dering of freemen by an infuriated mob. 

It has struck a fatal blow at the freedom of 
speech and freedom of the press, worse than that 
of the sedition law of 1798. 

It has led to an invasion of the ballot-box and 
the usurpation of government. 

It has led to the enactment of a code of laws, 
or pretended laws, so tyrannical that the seifs of 
Russia could not live under them, much less free 
citizens of the freest Government on earth. 

It has imprisoned freemen for refusing to obey 
these laws; and a tyrannical judge, appointed by 
and removable at the pleasure of the President, 
has refused to accept bail and release the pris- 
oners. 

The admission of Kansas as a free State would 
at once remedy, in the future, all these evils, and 
end the strife. The friends of Mr. Buchanan, as 
already shown, had this in their power to do; but, 
by an almost unanimous vote, refused it. 
toombs's bill. 

[n lieu of this, the Senate send to the House a 
bill known as the Toombs bill, in which it is pro- 
posed that the President, by the advice and con- 
sent of the Senate, shall have the power to appoint 
five men to take the census of Kansas, and fix 
upon who shall and who shall not be citizens, 
which decision is to be final. Under this clause 



6 



the President might appoint Stringfellow, Atchi- 
son, Jones, Donaldson, and Lecompte,and their 
list of citizens would have to be taken without 
exception in any way, not even by the plainest 
proof, at the time of voting, that such registering 
was grossly fraudulent. The bill further pro- 
vides^ that none but those who were citizens on 
the 4th of July, 1856, should be taken into the 
enumeration. After having burned and sacked 
cities, and driven free-State settlers from the Ter- 
ritory, they fix the 4th of July as the time upon 
which the enumeration shall be made, for the 
purpose, as is evident, of fixing upon the Terri- 
tory forever their exacting and arbitrary system 
of slavery. 

The friends of Mr. Buchanan in the House 
and Senate vote for this infamous bill, and then 
publish it far and wide that they have made this 
beautiful proposition for the purpose of pacifica- 
tion ! I blush to know that a Senator from my 
own glorious free State is helping to push this 
miserable, flimsy, gauze-work idea upon the 
people of Pennsylvania. Our people, although 
honest, I admit have been deceived; but let them 
but ask themselves the question, whether they 
would allow this great question to be placed for 
settlement in the hands of Franklin Pierce alone? 
The bill provides for nothing more nor less; and 
it is, therefore, the grossest arrogance to tell the 
free people of the North that Franklin Pierce, 
who has been the chief actor and manager in all 
these troubles, should have the power intrusted 
to him to settle them. The people would agree 
to no such arbiter. Already they have lost all 
confidence in his ability to administer the Gov- 
ernment, and therefore cannot and will not trust 
Iiim to try a great cause in which he is the chief 
criminal himself. 

dunn's bill to restore the Missouri compro- 
mise, AND RESOLUTIONS TO RELEASE PRISONERS 
AND EXPEL BROOKS. 

The friends of freedom in the House next passed 
a bill restoring the Missouri restriction, and pro- 
viding for the release of the prisoners charged 
with treason for participating in the formation of 
a free-State constitution. On the passage of this 
bill, all the friends of Mr. Buchanan but three are 
found recorded in the negative. 

On the resolution submitted by myself for the 
release of George W. Smith, N. W. Dietzler, 
G. W. Brown, and others, the friends of Mr. 
Buchanan, with three exceptions, are found 
voting in the negative. 

On the resolution to expel Brooks for an un- 
justifiable assault upon Senator Sumner, the 
friends of Mr. Buchanan are found voting, with 
three exceptions, against the expulsion. In the 
argument upon this resolution, the prominent and 
leading friends of the Democratic nominee are 
found justifying the use and application of the 
bludgeon against the freedom of speech — one of 
the guarantees of our national Constitution. 

On the resolution to expel Whitfield from the 
seat he obtained through the frauds and usurpa- 
tions of men from Missouri, as most clearly es- 
tablished by the testimony of several hundred 
witnesses, the friends of Mr. Buchanan, with 



three or four exceptions, voted in favor of his 
retaining his seat as a representative of Kansas. 
Upon all these questions, the friends of freedom 
in the House stood shoulder to shoulder, and, 
with serried ranks, maintained their position 
despite the taunts and jeers and threats of men 
whose habits and associations have taught them 
to believe they were born to command, and that 
we were made to obey. 

The Administration party in this House, who 
are now the leaders of the Buchanan ranks, are 
constantly engaged in glorifying the Nebraska 
bill — a bill, in my judgment, of abominations — a 
Pandora's box, from which has issued countless 
wrongs, and inexcusable and unmitigated out- 
rages. They speak of the men who aided in its 
passage as worthy soldiers in a worthy cause; 
and declare that none but those who indorse the 
gallantry of that soldiery are worthy to become 
the standard-bearers of the Democratic party in 
the coming presidential election. I believe it was 
a Spartan mother who enjoined it upon her son, 
in going to battle, to return (if return he did) with 
his wounds in front. It is matter of opinion 
what are, and what are not,- honorable wounds 
in the Nebraska battle. In my judgment, the 
honorable gentlemen from No«tli Carolina, [Mr. 
Puryear,] from Tennessee, [Mr. Etheridge,] 
and the honorable Clerk of this House, [General 
Cullom,] bear their wounds in front. They ad- 
monished you and the country of just such fruits 
of this palpable breach of faith; and they, as 
beacons of light, warned you of the rock against 
which you were dashing, but you recklessly 
refused to heed them. When the names of 
Douglas, Pierce, Toombs, and others, will be 
; spoken of as agitators of measures which led to 
j mobs, riots, and bloodshed, those of Puryear, 
j Etheridge, Cullom, Hunt, Bell, and Houston, will 
be linked in association with those of the great 
conservators of the age, as men worthy of being 
enrolled in the scroll of fame as wise and patriotic 
statesmen. 

History assigned a place to Nero and Draco, 
the oppressors of human rights, and they are 
remembered only as the bloodiest tyrants of the 
age in which they lived. The frarners of the in- 
famous black code of Kansas, as well as those in 
power who sustain them, can expect to occupy 
no higher ground when the historian shall write 
the history of their political oppressions. Some 
American Michael Angelo may yet be found who 
will canvas the horrible picture, to be hung in 
the rotunda, there to be looked upon by future 
generations only to be execrated and abhorred. 
Painted, as it should be, with a dark back ground, 
made red by the blood of freemen, with Lawrence 
wrapped in flames, the printing press — the Herald 
of Freedom — thrown into the river, with Pierce, 
Douglas, Toombs, Mason, and other prominent 
actors in the bloody drama, grouped and stand- 
ing in full view of the work of destruction which 
they have been the reckless instruments of pro- 
ducing, with the fire of the devoted city glaring 
in their faces, that our children and our children's 
children, when they visit this Capitol, and look 
upon the picture, may learn to value freedom 
more, by increasing their detestation for tyranny 



in whatever shape or form it may be exercised 
over the minds or bodies of men. Let this be 
done to assist in perpetuating freedom of opinion, 
of speech, and of the press — the three great ele- 
ments of free institutions. 

KANSAS LAWS. 

In breaking down this great partition wall, 
built by our fathers, between freedom and sla- 
very, the Democratic party have allowed and sanc- 
tioned, and now refuse to repeal, enactments by a 
body of usurpers, which reflect a deep and damn- 
ing disgrace upon the pure, free, exalted, and 
never-dying spirit of universal liberty. These : 
cruel laws they suffer to be enforced at the peril 
of the lives of the citizens, who cannot obey them 
because they owe a higher duty to the Constitu- ! 
tion of the Union, which guaranties the freedom 
of speech and of the press to all. What free- 
man, who prides himself upon his reverence and 
respect for the laws of the land, would dare to call 
these border ruffian acts laws, and then look the 
Constitution in the face? If he did, and that 
sacred instrument had eyes to confront him, it ! 
would frown him from its presence, and, if tongue 
to speak, would pronounce him false to its most 
sacred provisions. The Constitution secures the ; 
liberty of speech, and tyrants pass laws which 
deny this right, and imprison and murder men 
for violating a so-called law, which itself violates 
and tramples under foot the Constitution of the 
United States. 

It is but a short time since I listened to a Sen- 
ator from the Old Dominion, [Mr. Mason,] pre- j 
tenting an array of constitutional refinements as 
to the power of the Government to appropriate 
money for internal improvements, which would 
laugh to scorn all the hair-splitting distinctions j 
ever conceived of by the most learned metaphy- ' 
sicians. The Constitution conferred no power to 
cjear away obstructions in the mouth of the Mis- ' 
aissippi, because not expressly found in that in- 
strument. But here an express power or right 
of freedom of speech and the press is trampled 
upon; and because representatives portray these 
as flagrant outrages and wrongs upon the rights 
of freemen, the Constitution is violated with im- 
punity, and all southern subtilties and refine- 
ments are scattered to the wind. 

No man is permitted to say that in his opinion 
slavery does not exist in a free territory. If he 
thinks so he must suppress his thoughts, or other- 
wise he becomes a felon, and must be imprisoned 
for two years; and to cap the climax — if once 
charged with having opened his lips in favor of 
freedom — he is to be tried by ajury of slave- 
holders, or pro-slavery men. He is first denied 
the right of free speech, and then denied the right 
of a fair and impartial trial by jury. What other 
step could be taken approaching nearer to mon- 
archy ? 

The sedition act of 1798 punished by fine and 
imprisonment for writing against the Government 
and its officers, but gave the- accused an impartial 
trial by jury, and allowed him to plead, in justifi- 
cation, the truth of the charge made; but the 
Kansas law does not permit the truth to be given ' 
in evidence, and goes a step still beyond the in- 



famous sedition act, by punishing a man not only 
for writing but for speaking. Writing and pub- 
lishing a falsehood were the requisites of guilt in 
the sedition law; but in the Kansas code, a man 
may be punished who has neither written nor 
published, but who may have been guilty of pro- 
claiming his thoughts in the presence of freemen, 
that slavery does not exist in the Territory. Nay, 
more, he is punished if he carries about him a 
newspaper, pamphlet, magazine, letter of a friend, 
or any other document, in which it is asserted 
slavery does not rightfully exist in a/r«e Territory. 
Under this infamous code of tyranny, an inti- 
mate friend and acquaintance, George W.Smith, 
of Pennsylvania, is now imprisoned, and not per- 
mitted even to address a letter to his wife, or 
receive one from her, unless subjected to the 
examination of those who have robbed him of 
his liberty. His offense consists in this, that he 
helped to frame a free constitution for Kansas, 
and for this he is charged with treason — trea- 
son, not for raising his arm or voice against the 
laws of the land and threatening to dissolve the 
Union, but treason for attempting to bring into 
the Union an additional free State. For upwards 
of twenty years I have known him as a friend 
and a companion in social life, upon the circuit 
and at the bar — his impulses kind and generous; 
his love of liberty ardent and sincere, and his 
whole life a refutation against the charge upon 
which he is now imprisoned. His friends, with 
whom I have had the pleasure of holding recent 
converse, are breaking away from all restraints 
of party, and giving utterance to deep-toned in- 
dignation, which, like the rumbling of distant 
thunder, shakes the haiints of his youth and his 
manhood. Pennsylvanians as they are, and 
hitherto conservative, lovers of peace and of the 
Union, are roused to the cry of vengeance for the 
degradation and shame to which a cherished 
friend has been subjected, for no crime but that of 
freedom of opinion and speech. Pennsylvania 
seeks no quarrel with any law of the land; but I 
tell you now, in the name of that loyal, peaceful, 
and powerful Commonwealth, she demands the 
immediate and unconditional surrender of Smith, 
Brown, Deitzler, and others of her sons who 
are now in prison for the exercise of the con- 
stitutional rights of freedom of opinion and of 
speech. She demands it because they are there 
without wrong and against manifest right. If 
you tell me they are there to answer the demands 
of the law, I hurl it back with scorn, as the taunts 
and jeers of despots. For this unwarrantable 
invasion of the rights of freemen, Pennsylvania 
arraigns the actors, aiders, and abettors for trea- 
son against the Constitution of the country, and 
proclaims her fixed purpose to place her iron heel 
upon all concerned in passing, maintaining, and 
executing, a pretended code of laws which, for 
tyranny and oppression, rival the worst laws of 
the worst tyranny which ever degraded the Gov- 
ernment of any country. Unshackle her sons, or 
bide the wrath of two millions and a half of free- 
men. The bugle-note of preparation is unmis- 
takably heard in the resolute and determined tone 
of insulted freemen. You pass laws which 
muzzle the mouths of freemen, and then say, wait 



8 



till the law is declared unconstitutional. As well 
might you pass a law prohibiting my attendance 
upon a church of my own choice, or one declar- 
ing trial by jury a fallacy and delusion, and in- 
flict a penalty for asserting otherwise, and com- 
mand my obedience until a constitutional test 
should be applied. All such palpable onslaughts 
upon the inherent and constitutional rights of 
man, I would scatter to the winds and resist to 
the death, not as the laws of rational legislators, 
but as the devices of the worst and most unmiti- 
gated species of tyranny. 

REASONS AGAINST SLAVERY EXTENSION. 

The exacting nature of slavery, as exhibited in 
the character of laws which pro-slavery men 
enact, foreshadow its manifest destiny, dissolu- 
tion, and decay, at no distant day. 

This law of nature is now grappling with 
slavery, and the power of the latter must yield to 
the uncontrolled and uncontrollable fiat of the 
former. The accomplishment of this great era 
in the history of our Government is, I admit, not 
to be the result of anything but moral suasion 
upon slavery where it is, and governmental re- 
straints upon its enlargement upon the virgin free 
soil of the nation. 

The dispassionate reflection of southern minds 
must bring it about in States where it now exists; 
but northern sentiment has a right to control its 
invasion of territory, the common property of 
all the States. Public policy, the controlling ele- 
ment Of all well-regulated governments, should 
direct public sentiment in the exercise of the func- 
tions and powers conferred upon the people by 
the Constitution, without fear or favor, and with 
an eye single to the advancement of the interest, 
character, and dignity of the entire nation. 

With the deep and abiding conviction upon my 
mind, that it is the right and solemn duty of this 
Government to restrain slavery and the slave 
power within its present bounds, I solicit the fur- 
ther attention of the House while I present the 
arguments in support of the postulate I have 
assumed. Aside from the sentimentality of the 
question, with which I profess to have nothing 
to do, and which must address itself alone to the 
mind of the southern philanthropist, I have ob- 
jections, founded in public policy, which control 
my action upon this great question, and, until 
otherwise convinced, will forever constrain me 
from agreeing to the enlargement of the slave 
power. That slavery is an evil, and a great one, 
the wisest men of the nation, North and South, 
have admitted — an evil to be tolerated only be- 
cause it seems to be without a remedy. In the 
memorable discussion on the admission of Mis- 
souri, Mr. Elliott, of Georgia, declared that sla- 
very was an evil found in this country at the 
formation of the present Government, and was 
tolerated because it cannot be remedied. 

Mr. Smith, of South Carolina, in the same dis- 
cussion, declared its perpetuation necessary, that 
its revolting features might inspire us with a 
higher appreciation and love of liberty. 

Mr. Lee, in the constitutional convention of 
Virginia, himself perhaps a slaveholder, and sur- 
rounded by scores of others, " wished he had been 



born in a land where domestic and negro slavery 
was unknown, and that Providence had spared 
the country the moral and political evil." 

James Monroe, a President beloved as much 
by the North as the South, in that same conven- 
tion declared that he considered the question of 
slavery the most important one which could come 
before that body; " and that he was satisfied the 
claim of the western part of Virginia for the 
white basis of representation, under particular 
circumstances, was rational." 

Mr. Mercer, another distinguished member of 
that body, bewailed the desolation of Virginia, 
and declared " that the bone and sinew of the 
State must be raised above the slave." 

In the discussion of the Missouri compromise 
the language of your own immortal Jefferson is 
quoted, and not denied. It is this: 

" There must be an unhappy influence on the manners 
of our people, produced by the existence of slavery amongst 
us. The whole commerce between master and slave is a 
perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most 
unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading sub- 
mission on the other. Our children see this and learn to 
imitate it, for man is an imitative animal. The parent 
storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, 
puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives 
a loose rein to his worst passions ; and thus nursed, educa- 
ted, and daily exercised in tyranny cannot but be stamped 
by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prod- 
igy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by 
such circumstances." 

The connection which this immortal statesman 
had with the ordinance of 1787, by which the 
great Northwest Territory was forever dedicated 
to freedom, affords the strongest proof that he 
deprecated the existence of slavery, and gave his 
name, power, and influence, in favor of its abridg- 
ment. A perpetual exercise of boisterous pas- 
sion and unremitting despotism, as was observed 
by the author of the immortal Declaration of In- 
dependance, was most likely to prove fatal to 
that cherished element in the Government he had 
helped to form, and hence his anxious solicitude 
for the spread of that restrictive principle of which 
he was the founder. Men who are used to com- 
mand, and to enforce obedience to those com- 
mands, are apt to exhibit, in boisterous passion 
and unremitting despotism, the power which they 
claim and which they cannot tolerate to be called 
in question. The boisterous exhibitions of pas- 
sion by the parent become daguerreotyped upon 
the infant mind, and lead to the result so faith- 
fully and truthfully delineated by Mr. Jefferson. 
To the reflective southern mind, the portrait of 
slavery drawn by their own immortal statesman 
cannot fail to prove a lesson of profitable instruC' 
tion, and worth a thousand lectures from ultra 
northern men. With the evils and responsibilities 
of slavery as it exists in the States, we of the 
North have nothing to do; the whole must rest 
upon those who are connected with and maintain 
the system. But with its expansion we believe 
we have responsibility, because we believe we 
possess the power to arrest its future progress in 
territory now free. The fullest and freest exercise 
of all the constitutional power conferred upon us 
is a duty we owe ourselves, our constituents, and 
our country; a power which I shall not fail to 
exercise to the fullest extent of my own interpre- 



9 



tation of that sacred instrument. For that inter- 
pretation I shall look to its written language — 
cotemporaneous legislation, in which the frame rs 
of the Constitution to some extent participated; 
to judicial construction since; and to subsequent 
recognitions by southern as well as northern 
statesmen. My convictions of duty, whatever 
they are, shall be obeyed uninfluenced by bois- 
terous passion or unremitting despotism. 

I seek to disturb no vested right, but to abridge 
the enlargement of an admitted evil; an evil be- 
wailed by the wisest statesmen of the Ancient 
Dominion thirty years ago, because of the blight 
and desolation which then followed in its train, 
and now become indelibly impressed upon the 
broad face of that cherished and renowned Com- 
monwealth. With an area in square miles greater 
than Pennsylvania, a more balmy climate, and 
rich, profusely rich, in mineral resources, since 
1790 she has but doubled her free white popula- 
tion, whilst Pennsylvania, in the same time, has 
more than quadrupled hers. The mighty oak 
has stood for generations in the dark and sullen 
forests of the Ancient Dominion, untouched by 
the hand of the hardy white pioneer, and bidding 
defiance to the ax of the poor, enervated Afri- 
can. The richest valleys upon which the sun of 
heaven ever shone are there to be seen in their 
primeval state, just where the' red man found 
them centuries ago. What does all this mean — 
this uninterrupted, solemn stillness, in a land 
blessed with a profusion of God's richest boun- 
ties? There is a cause for all this, which Vir- 
ginians must look in the face, and count its prob- 
able cost. Time alone will solve the problem, 
what it is that desolates the fairest portion of the 
universe, and when it is that that desolation shall 
cease, and give place to life, business, and a state 
of unexampled prosperity, which the Ancient 
Dominion, I sincerely hope and trust, is one day 
destined to enjoy. 

With the blight and desolation which pervade 
the mother of States and of statesmen I have 
nothing to do except to point to the cause, with 
the view of impressing the American mind against 
the enlargement of a system so fraught with 
danger to the growth and happiness of a free 
people. Fully convinced, as I am, that it dwarfs 
the nation in which it exists, 1 would be recreant 
to my own long and well-settled convictions to 
allow it to extend beyond its present limit. If 
this be abolitionism, then Jefferson, Monroe, 
Lee, and other distinguished southern men, were 
Abolitionists, for they deplored the existence of 
slavery as an evil, and left upon record the most 
solemn admonitions against its enlargement. I 
maintain that this Government possesses the 
power, in the broadest sense of the term, to pre- 
vent the extension of any system or institution 
within its limits which may affect the wealth, 
strength, or growth of our Confederation. The 
primary object of the Union was to increase, nut 
diminish, these governmental elements; and if I 
am prepared to show, by the history of the past 
and the sad realities of the present, that slavery 
tends to depress all these right arms of a nation 's 
greatness, I succeed indisputably in establishing 
the postulate that the power to abridge belongs 



to, and should be exercised by, the Govern- 
ment. 

I have said it diminishes the wealth, strength, 
and growth of a nation; and now for the proof, 
first, as to the wealth. 

By the last census, the estimated cash value of 
all the farms in the free States is $2,13:2,15] ,676; 
whilst that of the southern States is $1,1 17,298,38,8; 
the North being almost double that of the South. 

The North has an area in square miles of six 
hundred and forty-three thousand three hundred 
and twenty-six miles; whilst the South has nine 
hundred and twenty-eight thousand eight hun- 
dred and ninety-two — being an excess over the 
North of two hundred and eighty-five thousand 
four hundred and thirty-six miles, with a much 
more favorable latitude, and a greater amount of 
sea-coast, with navigable rivers extending into 
and across the States, the comparative value' 
of farms is as already given, exhibiting a marked 
depression in the value of southern property when 
compared even with the cold, bleak, granite hills 
of New Hampshire. 

Virginians, who clamor so much about the ex- 
tension of slavery, bear with me while I institute 
a comparison between your once " Old Domin- 
ion" and the "Empire State." The area of 
square miles in the former is sixty-one thousand 
three hundred and fifty-two; and in the latter 
forty-six thousand. The cash value of farms in 
New York is $554,546,642; and in Virginia but 
$216,401,543. The improved lands in New York 
are 12,408,964, and unimproved, 6,710,123 acres. 
In Virginia, improved, 10,360,135, and unim- 
proved, 15,792,176 acres. Why this great dis- 
parity in the value of property in these two great 
States ? Will gentlemen across the way tell me 
that New York had advantages over Virginia in 
starting out? If they do, I answer, that the Old^ 
Dominion, in 1790, had a white population of 
442,1 15; whilst New York had but 314,142. With 
130,000 more strong arms — I mean white arms 
of chivalric men, how has she fallen behind in 
the accumulation of wealth ? But more, sir; Vir- 
ginia, at that period, had 293,427 slaves, and New 
York but 21,324; and yet the former sinks into 
insignificance in the scale of wealth alongside of 
the latter. There is a cause for this, which Vir- 
ginians mustknowand feel, and doubtless bewail, 
as did Benjamin Watkins Lee in 1820. 

The cause, so palpable, is like the hand-writ- 
ing on the wall, and long ere this Virginia 
might well have shook, as did Belshazzer of old. 
Whilst I point to this disparity in the wealth of 
these two great States, I do it out of no desire to 
call up unpleasant thoughts and reflections; nor, 
sir, is it done with any view of inducing Virginia 
or the South to adopt a change of policy. I do 
it to convince even Virginians that they should 
not ask us to agree to the extension of a system 
which strikes down national wealth in the com- 
parative ratio which I have exhibited. 

Where slavery exists, all other business seems 
to be paralyzed. Out of 791,545 persons engaged 
in manufacturing in the United States in 1840, but 
187,787 are in the South; out of 117,575 persons 
engaged in commerce, but 37,387 belong to the 
South; out of 56,025 engaged in navigating the 



10 



mighty deep, but 4,987 belong to the South; and 
in internal navigation, out of 33,067 persons en- 
gaged, but 10,697 are from the South. Who that 
reads these statistics can fail to divine the cause? 
Reposing and relying almost solely upon your 
cotton, you have turned your backs upon almost 
every other industrial pursuit. Fold your arms, 
and sleep in undisturbed repose upon your accus- 
tomed couch of ease. You shaJl not, so far as I 
am concerned, be disturbed; but seek not to ex- 
tend that system to land where commerce, agri- 
culture, and manufactures, claim to have undis- 
fmted sway. You have territory enough — mil- 
ions of acres more than the free States — upon 
which to spread, if you please, the malaria which 
blights the business and prosperity of the freest 
and happiest people on earth, without extending 
it to territory now free, and which I trust, in the 
providence of God, is destined forever to remain 
so. 

I have said, secondly, it diminishes the strength 
of the nation, Which I flatter myself I can prove. 
The strength of our nation consists in the free 
population, the growth of which slavery tends to 
repress, as is manifest from facts to which I call 
the attention of the House. 

The aggregate white population of the United 
States, in 1S50, was 19,553,068, of which 6,184,477 
were 1 in the South. 

The white population of New York and Penn- 
sylvania, in 1775, was 579,000, and that of Mary- 
land and Virginia, 474,000. How stands the 
figures now? The former have a population of 
5,306,485, and the latter, 1,312,743, being the 
enormous increase of 4,000,000 beyond 'the States 
which have the decided advantage in sea-coast, 
latitude, and in many other respects. Here is a 
fact startling in its character, and one which 
should awaken southern gentlemen from the ap- 
palling lethargy with which they have been im- 
pressed formore than half acentury. Remember, 
Maryland and Virginia started out within a hun- 
dred thousand of the white population of New 
York and Pennsylvania, and that they are now 
four millions behind, and yet they ask us to carry 
this same devastating system into States which 
are yet in embryo, in the crysalis State, and 
about to breathe the pure, free air of universal 
liberty. 

Of the 56,025 persons engaged in the navigation 
of the seas, 42,154 hail from New England, and 
but 4,987 from the entire South; and yet we have 
been obliged to sit here for months listening to 
the oft-repeated and now stale denunciations of 
the noble sires of nine tenths of the gallant tars 
who ride upon the whirlwind and the storm, and 
whose business it is to teach the present and com- 
ing generations where and how to navigate in 
safety. A nation's strength consists in part of 
just such men — men who are unused to a life of 
ease, but who, by nature and education, are emi- 
nently fitted for the severest trials which the 
hardest fate and destiny can assign them. 

Any system or policy which decreases popula- 
tion, the great (dement, after all, of national 
strength, and which enervates and unfits that 
population for hardships, weakens the national 
strength. It is the true policy of this Government 



to people the Territories, and even States, with 
freemen, who may, if necessary, become soldiers, 
and not with slaves, who cannot. The latter, if 
pressed into the service and killed, must be paid 
for, as your congressional enactments, I believe, 
will show. By a comparison of the strength of 
the militia of the free and slaveholding States, it 
will be seen, that in this respect it is impolitic to 
extend slavery beyond its present limits. 

I have said, as a third reason against its exten- 
sion, that it affects the growth of the nation. By 
this I mean in population, agriculture, commerce, 
and manufactures, as is evidently the case by the 
comparisons already instituted. If Maryland and 
Virginia have lost four millions of popuration in 
sixty-six years by adopting and adhering to sla- 
very, what has been the relative loss of the other 
old States of the South during the same period, 
and growing out of the same cause? If com- 
merce and manufactures shall continue to lan- 
guish in the same relative proportion for the next* 
half century, where will be found, in this land of 
liberty, a single man to raise his voice in favor 
of an extension of a system which carries in its 
train nothing but desolation and decay? 

The decrease of population occasioned by the 
incubus of slavery upon a State or Territory, 
even with the addition of the three fifths of the 
slaves, is apparent by the loss of representation. 
Beginning with the first apportionment for con- 
gressional representation under a census which 
was taken in 1790, Virginia and Maryland started 
out with twenty-seven Congressmen, and Penn- 
sylvania and New York with twenty-four. At the 
second apportionment, the former increased four, 
while the latter increased eleven. The third, Vir- 
ginia and Maryland increased but one, whil« 
Pennsylvania and New York increased fifteen. 
The fourth apportionment, in 1820, Virginia and 
Maryland lost one, and Pennsylvania and New 
York increased ten; and at the fifth, in 1830, the 
latter increased eight, while Maryland and Vir- 
ginia lost two. At this latter period the Repre- 
sentatives of the last named States had fallen to 
twenty-nine, only two beyond what they started 
with forty years before; whilst Pennsylvania and 
New York increased their number forty-four be- 
yond that with which they started in 1790. Be- 
tween 1830 and 1840 the tide of migration was 
westward, and sunk the representation of'the 
old States to swell the new, leaving the relative 
representation of the States between which the 
comparison is drawn, at about the same as it was 
in 1830, but presenting the sad spectacle of an 
actual loss on the part of Maryland and Virginia, 
in sixty years, of five members, haying now the 
meager representation of but nineteen on thisfloor, 
whilst Pennsylvania and New York have fifty- 
eight — a gain of thirty-four; and this, too, after 
having contributed mainly to the settlement of 
the entire Northwest. 

Georgia is called the fast State of the South. 
Let us run her a tilt with the Buckeye. In 1790 
Georgia had three Representatives — Ohio not 
then admitted. By the census of 1800, the latter 
had but one Representative, and Georgia had 
added one to her number, making four. The 
next ten years, Georgia increased two, and Ohio 



11 



five; each at this period. 1810, having six Repre- 
sentatives; and now, sir, what has the past forty 
years done for Georgia? It has increased her 
representation but two members. The answer 
is a melancholy commentary upon the slave 
policy which she early adopted, and has since 
been clinging to as if it were her only salvation. 
The same forty years have added to the represent- 
ation of Ohio fifteen members. How is this, and 
why is this? Georgia has an area greater by 
twenty thousand miles than Ohio, has the ad- 
vantage of a sea-coast on its entire eastern bound- 
ary; and checkered by magnificent rivers, upon 
which the commerce of the great Atlantic can 
be floated to every point, she falls back and 
counts, slaves and all, but a little more than a 
third of her younger sister, Ohio. If it be ar- 
gued that the slhve States divided their territory, 
and helped to increase the new States formed out 
of their limits, I answer that the whole represent- 
ation of the new States formed out of old slave 
States is forty-eight, whilst that of the new States 
formed out of free territory amounts to fifty- 
two. 

You may further argue, that you have helped 
to settle and people the free States as well as your 
own. To some considerable extent I grant this 
has been the case; but why have your people de- 
serted the sunny South — the land of which you 
boast so much — to seek and find a northern home, 
to endure the hardships of a rigorous climate, 
and to face the frosts and snows of almost never- 
ending winters. Slavery has driven them there, 
and will continue to drive out your white popu- 
lation, until you will have nothing to clamor over 
or about but deserted towns and cities, and dilap- 
idated and abandoned estates. Another compari- 
son between the fast State of the South, Georgia, 
and the queen of the West, Ohio. The cash value 
of farms in the former is $95,753,445, and in the 
latter, $358,758,603. Think of it, statesmen of 
Georgia ! Ohio two hundred and sixty millions 
beyond Georgia in the value of improved farms, 
and yet the latter State is of the last, whilst Ohio is 
but a child of the present, century. South Carolina, 
in 1790, had a white population of 140,178, and in 
sixty years has increased it only 130,385. The 
county of Alleghany, in Pennsylvaeia, principally 
represented by my colleague, [Mr. Ritchie.,] and 
in partby myself, has apopulation of one hundred 
and thirty-eight thousand, and upwards, which 
has mostly, if not entirely, grown up since 1790. 
I appeal to South Carolina to know why it is 
you have been clamoring so long about the mainte- 
nance of this poor, miserable,, truckling system 
of slavery, that has hung as ajdead weight upon 
yourbody-politic,and kept you for half a century 
stationary? It is no business of mine to ask you 
to give it up; but it is my business to say to you 
as honorable, chivalric men, for the love you bear 
your native land, for the hope yon may have of 
its swelling greatness in the future, send not this 
nation-blasting system into Territories now free, 
and which may seek to unite with us in harmo- 
nious union. I have now, Mr. Speaker, as I con- 
ceive, satisfactorily proved that slavery affects 
and destroys the wealth, strength, and growth of 
a nation; and for these reasons, I give my most 



solemn admonition to my constituents, and to the 
country, against its extension. 

BASIS OF REPRESENTATION REVIEWED. 

But, sir, this question wears a political phase 
which claims, and should receive, the attention 
of every northern freeman. There is an element 
of power in slavery, which I do notquestion where 
it exists, but which shall never, by any vote of 
mine, be carried into territory now free. I refer, 
sir, to the basis of representation by which three 
fifths of the slaves of the United States are rep- 
resented. I desire to be distinctly understood as 
not objecting to it in the present slave States, 
but simply to its extension. It is a false prin- 
ciple, and was only agreed to originally by com- 
pact, which I would never break if I could; but 
I shall not extend it if I can prevent it. In other 
words, I shall not agree to the admission of a 
State which claims any such anti-democratic and 
anti-republican basis of power, for, sir, disguise 
it as you may, it is a question of power, and not 
merely one of representation. It is paradoxical 
to say that you are the Representatives of men 
who have no right to petition you for alleged 
grievances; and it is equally so to say that you 
occupy the relation of Representative and con- 
stituent, the latter in popular acceptation being 
the master, and the former the servant, when it 
is known that you reverse this popular axiom, 
and make them the servants, and you the masters. 
Your right to representation upon slave basis 
is not, and cannot, be sustained, except by the 
compact in the original Confederation, and in the 
States subsequently admitted by northern con- 
cession. This basis of representation is at best 
but a property one, and finds, and can find, no 
sanction in any political principle, so as to make 
it applicable to one set of men, and not to another. 
No one who is the least observant can fail to 
perceive that an extension of this power or basis 
of representation is dangerous to the existence of 
our republican institutions. It necessarily tends 
to a Concentration of power into the hands of the 
few to the detriment of the many. It confers the 
suffrage of the country, the great lever by which 
the Government is controlled, upon a privileged 
class, and may ultimately lead to the most sin- 
gular political anomaly of a minority ruling a 
large majority with " boisterous passion and 
unremitting despotism." I propose to demon- 
strate its inequality and unsoundness, and inap- 
plicability to a republican form of government. 

The State of Ohio contains a free-State popu- 
lation of 1,980,408, and sends twenty-one Repre- 
sentatives to Congress. The aggregate number of 
slaves in the United States, by the last census, is 
2,204,313: from which deduct two fifths, and you 
have left 1,922,593, upon which twenty or twenty- 
one gentlemen hold their scats in this House, 
thus neutralizing, or, in other words, blotting 
out of existence, the young giant of the West. 
The voice of near two millions of freemen, intel- 
ligent freemen, is entirely silenced in your Con- 
gressional Hall, because there are within the 
limits of the Government 3,000,000 of slaves. 
In other words, twenty-one Representatives are 
thrown away to appease the slave power. This 



12 



was a part of the terms of our partnership in 
entering upon the Confederation between the 
thirteen old States, but there was no part of that 
compact which requires us to extend it to States 
which might afterwards come into the Union. 
The Constitution of the United Slates, coiempo- 
rary with the Confederation, fixed the terms upon 
which new States were afterwards to be admitted, 
in the language used therein: "Congress may 
admit new States;" which evidently conferred 
upon the Congress to which application for ad- 
mission should be made, the power to admit or 
reject, with or without assigning reasons. The 
framers of the Constitution intended that the 
whole people of the United States, through their 
Representatives in Congress, should have a voice 
in the admission or rejection of new States. If 
I had no other objection to the admission of a 
State than that it claimed a Representative for 
three fifths of its slave property, I should most 
certainly vote against it on the ground that it 
diminished my political rights, and those of my 
constituents. For the purpose of presenting the 
argument in a way in which it may be generally 
and clearly understood, suppose a proposition of 
annexation should be made us by some slave- 
holding Government, with a slave population of 
40,000,000, each thousand of whom were owned 
by a single master, making 40,000 masters — that 
a part of the principle of annexation should be the 
adoption of the three-fifths basis of representation: 
what would be our condition in the event of an 
acceptance of the proposition ? Deduct two fifths 
and you have twenty-four millions left — more 
than the whole of the present population of the 
United States, slaves and freemen. To accept 
would be a surrender of your Government into 
the hands of forty thousand men, simply because 
they aie the owners of a thousand slaves each., 
Would the Democrats of the North agree to this, 
obliging as they are to their southern neighbors? 
Would the Representative from the city of Phil- 
adelphia, my colleague, [Mr. Cadwalader,] agree 
to this surrender of northern rights. And yet, sir, 
is not the admission of every slave State a prac- 
tical adoption of the same unjust and unequal 
principle ? Why, sir, [ can point to two congres- 
sional districts in Pennsylvania which poll about 
forty thousand votes, and yet they can send to this 
House but two members; whilst, in the case put, 
you would allow forty thousand voters, because 
they owned slave property, to send one hundred 
and twenty members under the present ratio. 

In the one case, you allow less than one hundred 
and fifty men to elect a Congressman, and in the 
other you require twenty thousand. If this be 
Democratic, then I confess I am at fault in under- 
standing the force of a term long the popular 
sobriquet of a large and respectable party of the 
United States. The owner of a thousand slaves 
for purposes of enumeration, is six hundred times 
better than the best northern Democrat upon the 
floor of this House; and when he accumulates 
this particular species of property to four thou- 
sand, he is then twenty-four hundred times better 
than either of my Democratic colleagues, and 
stands, politically, so immeasurably beyond ami 
above them, as to require the use, of a microscope 



to see them. One hundred and fifty men, with a 
thousand slaves each , would be entitled to a mem- 
ber of Congress; they would do the voting:, the 
legislation; and to them would belong the control 
of the entire congressional district. Let the 
ownership of this body of slaves concentrate stilt 
further by one man owning four thousand, and 
you reduce the congressional voters of a district 
to thirty-seven or thirty-eight less than the voters 
of the smallest borough or precinct in my con- 
gressional district. What northern man will 
dare to sanction this unjust principle of repre- 
sentation when once his constituents fully under- 
stand it ? 

Freemen of the North, and non-slaveholdingciti- 
zens of the South, you are invoked to join in putting 
a stop to the further progress of slavery in new 
States and Territories. There yon have the power 
to act, and that action should be prompt and de- 
cided, unless you are willing to surrender the 
control of the Government to a slave oligarchy, 
composed of a minority of the people of the Uni- 
ted States. 

POWER TO PROHIBIT EXTENSION OF SLAVERY. 

The next question I propose to examine is, 
Have we the power to prevent the extension of 
slavery ? I affirm the existence of that power, as 
resulting from the nature and construction of the 
Government, as well as from the repeated legis- 
lation and judicial interpretation irt favor of its 
existence. A Government which does not pos- 
sess within itself the elements of its own protection 
would be unworthy the name, and less worthy 
the respect, of the governed. It is clearly within 
the power of Congress to exclude all persons, 
from any and all quarters, from the Territories 
under their control. The Constitution makes 
Congress the national guardian over the Terri- 
ritories; and to that body belongs the power to 
sell them, as a whole or in parcels, donate them to 
schools, colleges, or railroads, or refuse to dis- 
pose of them at all. This, I take it, from the 
language of the Constitution, is an absolute and 
unqualified power, not to be doubted by any one, 
and until recently, as I shall show, never has been 
called in question. If the people of the United 
States become satisfied that slavery weakens the 
power of the nation for self-defense by decreasing 
our population, by depressing our energies and 
crippling our,resources, what sane man can doubt 
the right of Congress to prohibit its extension to 
territory under the nation's control? 

That Congress did exercise this power with 
reference to Territories prior to 1808, I am pre- 
pared to show; an, a further, that the exercise of 
this power received not only favorable judicial 
construction, but the legislative sanction of south- 
ern men. The ordinance of July, 1787, prohib- 
iting slavery, except for crime, in any of the Ter- 
ritories, received the support of southern men, 
thus commencing the prohibitory policy before 
the organic law was formed; the organic law 
came next, in which you find the implied power 
to Congress to prohibit slavery in the new States 
and Territories prior to 1808 and in the old States 
after that period; also, in the same organic law, 
the power to Congress to edmit new States, with 



13 



a right, of course, to reject, if not satisfactory to 
the whole people of the Union. 

In 1798, Congress passed a "law prohibiting the 
importation of slaves into the Mississippi Terri- 
tory, under the penalty of $300 and freedom to 
the slave. So, in Louisiana, in 1804, a similar 
enactment. The citizens of Virginia presented 
petitions to the Territorial Legislature, after the 
ordinance of 1787, asking permission to settle 
with their slaves in the Territory. 

I would pursue this question of power still 
further; but my colleague [Mr. Ritchie] has so 
fully elaborated the argument on this point, that 
it becomes unnecessary. A reference to his able 
speech, which is a complete compendium of ad- 
judications upon this question, will satisfy every 
rational mind that the power ought to be regarded 
as clear and decisive. 

PRESIDENCY. 

The coming presidential struggle will be one 
in which the future destiny of slavery and of 
Kansas are involved. The policy of the respect- 
ive parties is now plainly inscribed upon their 
banners. Slavery, polygamy, or any other ex- 
crescence which .the resident inhabitants of a 
Territory, whoever they may be, the refugees of 
Botany bay if they choose to come, upon a sin- 
gle day's residence, may think proper to adopt, 
is the favorite policy of the so-called Democratic 
party, thus wresting from the whole people the 
power to reject which follows the power to admit 
new States. Inflexible opposition to the further 
extension of slavery into territory now free is 
the doctrine of the anti-Administration party. 
Deception can no longer now be practiced upon 
the public mind, although, doubtless, to some 
extent in the coming campaign it will be at- 
tempted. Already unmistakable indications of 
this are given by the friends of Mr. Buchanan in 
their affectation of kindness to Kansas. They now 
even talk of joining us in the admission of Kansas 
as a free State, and they now affect to condemn 
with us the black code of Kansas laws. 

A Senator in the other end of the Capitol, from 
Georgia, the embodiment of slavery, proposes a 
bill for the admission of Kansas as a State, to 
which I have already referred, and a member of 
this House, from the same State echoes a response 
to his Senator's proposition by offering to amend 
the people's proposition here by the slaveholder's 
magnificent conception in the other wing of the 
Capitol. The conspicuous part these gentlemen 
took in breaking down the Missouri compromise, 
to say the least of it, does not make them safe 
depositaries of freedom's cause in Kansas; and 
the friends of Mr. Buchanan may as well under- 
stand it now as again, that the people of Penn- 
sylvania cannot be deceived by the feint and 
false pretense they are about to make for free- 
dom. For nine long weeks they fought against 
the election of a friend of freedom to the Speak- 
ership of this body, and for four orfive more they 
opposed the raising of a committee to investigate 
the frauds of the Kansas Legislature, on the 
ground th it J ' ■ ould not go behind the record 
which made them Representatives, although that 
record might have been conceived and consum- 
mated ir *l - " 3 st fraud. No one contended 



with more tenacity and ability for this, as we 
believed and now believe, palpable illogical posi- 
tion, than the able and talented gentleman from 
Georgia, [Mr. Stephens.] 

This second moral battle was desperately 
fought, and the friends of freedom were once more 
triumphant. The committee have closed their 
labors — have now returned and unfolded the scroll 
of infamy which the friends of Mr. Buchanan 
for fourteen weeks labored to suppress. The 
Democratic party denied the existence of frauds, 
and contended the so-called " border ruffians" 
were fighting for " law and order" — that they were 
maintaining the laws passed by the Territorial 
Legislature, and that our friends were resisting 
those laws; and now, when the overwhelming 
evidence of the falsity of all this is about to come 
to light, they talk of pleading guilty and putting 
themselves upon the mercy of the court. If 
they had been really ignorant of these things, 
and had not put into requisition the power of the 
Federal Government to awe the freemen of Kan- 
sas into submission to fraudulent and tyrannical 
laws, a nation's clemency might have been ex- 
erted in their behalf. The President bowed to 
sectional influence, and turned prosecutor against 
the free people of Kansas; and the friends of Mr. 
Buchanan, in convention, assembled in Pennsyl- 
vania, as well as here in this House, with but 
two or three exceptions, and at Cincinnati, in- 
dorsed and approved the action taken by Franklin 
Pierce. 

Now, what is to be the programme for the ap- 
proaching presidential election ? Far and wide it 
will be given out that Mr. Buchanan disapproves 
of the course of the Pierce administration in ref- 
erence to Kansas, and thus another fraud like 
that of 1844 will be attempted upon the people of 
the North. Then the so-called Democratic party 
in Pennsylvania fought under the banner of Polk, 
Dallas, Shunk, and the tariff of 1842; and the 
only question in Pennsylvania was as to which of 
the two candidates was to be considered soundest 
upon that particular measure. So far as the pro- 
tective policy is concerned, they cannot deceive 
our people any longer, as they have distinctly 
unfurled to the breeze at Cincinnati the banner of 
free trade, for the first time, openly and distinctly 
avowed by them in Pennsylvania. 

DISSOLUTION OF THE UNION. 

Another part of the Democratic programme is, 
the old and oft-repeated story and bugbear of 
dissolution of the Union. Whilst, in the South, 
they unceasingly apply themselves to the single 
argument, vote for Mr. Buchanan, because he is 
the soundest man upon our negro question, and 
because in his election we can carry slavery into 
all the Territories of the Union; and because, in 
his election, on this account, the value of our 
negroes, as Governor Wise, of Virginia, said, 
would be preserved and increased; in the North 
they elongate their faces, and hang their heads, 
and prate nothing but dissolution of the Union. 
Dissolution of the Union, for the establishment of 
the Jeff rso: :!.'■': doctrine of slavery non-extension ! 
Nonsense! Dissolution of the Union, for arresting 
the progress of an evil, admitted to be such by the 
fat' ■• •' the Confederacy, and for the arrest of 



14 



•which they repeatedly interposed their power j 
and control! Dissolution of the Union, for 
preventing the growth of a system which I be- 
lieve I have shown is gradually undermining the 
wealth and strength and population of this grand 
Confederacy! Dissolution of the Union, because 
we will not consent to have the beautiful and 
fertile Kansas, a country twice as large as Penn- 
sylvania, and capable of maintaining a population 
often millions, erected into a slave State ! Lying, 
as it doeB, almost directly west of Philadelphia, 
the great metropolis of my own native State, and 
brought within close proximity to it by railroads 
in progress of completion , it requires no prophetic 
vision to see and tell the amount of interest the 
city of brotherly love has in its preservation as 
the home of the enterprising and industrious 
freeman. 

Kansas and Nebraska secured to freedom, you 
build up a population of millions of thrifty agri- 
culturists, manufacturers, and artisans, and the 
rolling, swelling tide of trade, running into count- 
less millions, will help to increase the magnificent 
proportions of my own cherished city. The 
keen and shrewd perception of a De Witt Clinton, 
even when the far Northwest was an illimitable 
forest, and inhabited alone by the Indian and the 
panther, grasped the destined, mighty future of 
Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, 
and persisted in the policy of the city of New 
York to reach its arm in that direction, and 
grapple the teeming wealth which that country, as 
he most surely predicted, would one day unfold. 
Kansas and Nebraska is a still greater north- 
west, already almost grappled by the city of 
brotherly love; and if not destined, in the provi- 
dence of God , to suffer under the blight of slavery, 
will prove to Philadelphia a reservoir of wealth, 
from which she will draw perpetual and never- 
ending supplies. Kansas and Nebraska, if free, 
are destined to have a population of thirty mil- 
lions: if slave, it will never rise to three, as free 
white settlers refuse to go where the master's 
lash takes the place of the freeman's will. 

Let Philadelphia but continue to be influenced 
by the ignis fatuus of dissolution of the Union, 
about which such men as her Reeds, Biglers, and 
Cadwaladers, are constantly prating, and the day 
is not far distant when her commercial interests 
will reap the fruits of a timidity at which even 
southern men join in the laugh of derision. Dis- 
solution of the Union for presuming to elect a 
President and "Vice President north of Mason and 
Dixon's line, when the retrospect of our political 
history for but a very few years points them to 
Jackson and Calhoun, both from southern States; 
to Adams, and Rush, and Harrison, and Gran- 
ger, northern men, for whom these very men who 
prate-disunion cast their suffrage. 

Sir, I was pleased to hear the noble stand on this 
question taken by the honorable gentleman from 
Kentucky, [Mr. Cox,] a southern man. If north- 
ern men would but read his speech, they would 
drive demagogues from the stand, who would dare 
to talk to them about disunion. That honorable 
gentleman declares that the people of the United 
States have the undoubted right to select, if they 
choose, their President and Vice President from 



either side of Mason and Dixon's line, without 
offense to the people North or South. He justly 
ridicules the cringing creature who fears to vote 
his own convictions for any such unfounded 
reason. 

Another southern gentleman [Mr. Davis] from 
Maryland justifies northern men in throwing their 
votes for the man who represents the principle of 
non-extension of slavery, when southern men of 
all parties throw themselves in the opposite direc- 
tion. Whilst he condemns sectionalism in either, 
he points to the fact of southern men going to 
Mr. Buchanan, because they believe he is sound- 
est on the slave question; and charges Mr. Buch- 
anan and his friends with having created a 
sectional party in behalf of the peculiar interest 
of slavery, justifying, in his opinion, a counter 
sectional party north of Mason and Dixon'a 
line. 

Let the legislation of the country be such as 
will make it flourish, and there will be no danger 
of a dissolution of the Union. If we have happy 
and prosperous homes, we will not trouble our- 
selves about localities, and whether we are north 
or south of Mason and Dixon's line, our theme 
will be the Union as it was, as it is, now and for 
all time to come. As long as demagogues and 
dough-faces in the North are found traveling 
about making disunion speeches, there will be 
found madmen enough in the South to join in the 
silly cry. 

Why talk about an event which can never hap- 
pen ? This Union is bound together by an indis- 
soluble tie, which, like the Gordian knot, cannot 
be unloosed; and to cut it would be treason. It 
is bound together by rivers and mountains, by 
cities connected in great commercial enterprises, 
by the grave of the northern soldier in the South, 
and the southern soldier in the North, and by 
that immortal Declaration of Independence which 
pledged North and South, East and West, for ita 
preservation. It cannot be dissolved unless by 
the rankest, foulest treason. The hand that would 
dare to strike the first blow would palsy in the 
attempt. The tongue that would dare to pro- 
claim the separation of these United States would 
cleave to the roof of a traitor's mouth. The spirits 
of the gallant veterans of the Revolution would 
haunt the wretch who would dare to expatriate 
their honored graves by throwing them outside 
that glorious Union for which they fought and bled 
1 and died. No, sir, this Union cannot be dissolved; 
and men who play the part of alarmists should 
be rebuked wherever they appear. This Union is 
the monument of all our battle-fields. It stands 
' out in bold relief, as well to perpetuate the chiv- 
' airy of the South as the North ; and equally heralds 
the fame of Bunker Hill and Yorktown. ft is 
I the monument of that indomitable energy and 
enterprise for which our people are everywhere 
distinguished. In a word, it is a monument of 
! the greatest good and the greatest glory which 
could be conferred upon any nation. There is a 
j talismanic influence and charm in the very name 
of Union, that will hush the demagogue to silence, 
and that will continue to unite us in a destiny 
which cannot fail to make us individually and 
1 collectively happy. 



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